From her story, to our story: Digital storytelling as public engagement around abortion rights advocacy in Ireland
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Published version
Date
2018-04
Authors
Michie, Lydia
Balaam, Madeline
McCarthy, John
Osadchiy, Timur
Morrissey, Kellie
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery, ACM
Published Version
Abstract
Despite the divisive nature of abortion within the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, where access to safe, legal abortion is severely restricted, effecting legislative reform demands widespread public support. In light of a building pro-choice counter-voice, this work contributes to a growing body of HCI research that takes an activist approach to design. We report findings from four design workshops with 31 pro-choice stakeholders across Ireland in which we positioned an exploratory protosite, HerStoryTold, to engender critical conversations around the use of sensitive abortion narratives as a tool for engagement. Our analysis shows how digital storytelling can help reject false narratives and raise awareness of the realities of abortion laws. It suggests design directions to curate narratives that provoke empathy, foster polyvocality, and ultimately expand the engaged community. Furthermore, this research calls for designers to actively support community mobilization through providing 'stepping stones' to activism.
Description
Keywords
Human-centered computing , Digital storytelling , Feminist HCI , Activism , Storytelling , Reproductive rights , Social movements
Citation
Michie, L., Balaam, M., McCarthy, J., Osadchiy, T. and Morrissey, K. (2018) 'From Her Story, to Our Story: Digital Storytelling as Public Engagement around Abortion Rights Advocacy in Ireland', CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Montreal QC, Canada, 21-26 April, ACM NY, USA, Paper No. 357 (15pp). doi: 10.1145/3173574.3173931